Yellow Sheet Report/ Wayne Schutsky Business, economic development and general assignment reporter working in the Phoenix Metro area in Arizona.

 

Wayne Schutsky

  VERIFIED

• Editor, Yellow Sheet Report

Phoenix

Business and Finance, Real Estate

As seen in: Yellow Sheet Report, Government Technology, Phoenix New Times, ENR: Engineering News-Record, Transport Topics, East Valley Tribune, Arizona Capitol Times, FireRescue1, Ahwatukee Foothills News, Rose Law Group, West Valley View and more

Editor @theyellowsheet /occasional appearances in @azcapitoltimes Exes: @scottsdaleprog2 and @evtnow

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Don’t make Ted Cruz’s mistake and go full border in your next photo op. Buy the shirt that says, “Who am I? The governor - it says so on this massive patch.” Styles include uncomfortable Oxford and polo with weirdly long sleeves. Available in blue or blue.

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REPTILIAN PARTHENOGENESIS: A case of a virgin crocodile laying viable eggs. . .Now that virgin births have been documented in both birds and Crocodilia, it raises the question of whether pterosaurs and/or dinosaurs were able to do so, as well

They normally mate to reproduce, like most other reptiles, and lay eggs that later hatch. 

But now, it appears that they can reproduce asexually if need be.

A documented case of a crocodile virgin birth

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

Crocodylus acutus, American Crocodile, Cocodrilo Americano. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5

"A team of entomologists and reptile specialists from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the Chiricahua Desert Museum, the Illinois Natural History Survey, Reptilandia Reptile Lagoon and Parque Reptilandia has documented a case of a virgin crocodile laying viable eggs. 

• In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, the group describes their surprise at the discovery of a clutch of eggs laid by an American crocodile who had been kept alone in an enclosure at Parque Reptilandia park in Costa Rica for 16 years prior to laying the eggs.

Prior research has found instances of "virgin birth"—a type of asexual reproduction in a species that normally reproduces sexually—in snakes, lizards, sharks and birds, but never in Crocodilia, an order that includes gharials, caimans, alligators and crocodiles. 

• So the handlers at Parque Reptilandia were surprised to see a clutch of eggs in an enclosure hosting a single American crocodile.
• Alligators are well known in North America, but crocodiles live there, too, in parts of Florida. They also live in Central and South America. 
• They normally mate to reproduce, like most other reptiles, and lay eggs that later hatch. But now, it appears that they can reproduce asexually if need be.

The clutch of 14 eggs was discovered back in 2016. After handlers noted their arrival, they notified local specialists. The eggs were collected and taken to a lab for study, where researchers found that half of them were viable. The viable eggs were placed in an incubator with the hope of producing hatchlings.

None of the eggs produced any, unfortunately, leading the researchers to crack them open after three months to see what was going on. 

• All of the eggs had progressed toward hatching, but only one actually resembled a fetus.
•  A genetic study of the most advanced specimen revealed that it was nearly identical to its mother.

The research team notes that it was not surprising that none of the eggs were hatchable; eggs laid in such fashion rarely are. 

Now that virgin births have been documented in both birds and Crocodilia, it raises the question of whether pterosaurs and/or dinosaurs were able to do so, as well."

More information: Warren Booth et al, Discovery of facultative parthenogenesis in a new world crocodile, Biology Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2023.0129

OneWeb targets maritime market with expanded satellite coverage

While OneWeb now has enough satellites for global services with 634 spacecraft in LEO, including a technology demonstrator for a second-generation system, it expects to finalize the ground stations needed for worldwide coverage by the end of this year. 

CommercialOneWeb targets maritime market with expanded satellite coverage

Jason RainbowJune 6, 2023

Kymeta announced the commercial availability of its electronically steered Peregrine u8 LEO terminal June 6, designed to serve the maritime market on OneWeb’s network. Credit: Kymeta

TAMPA, Fla. — OneWeb launched a free trial offer for maritime customers June 6 after bringing its low Earth orbit (LEO) broadband network online over a larger swathe of the northern hemisphere.
The British operator said its network is now fully operational down to 35 degrees latitude, encompassing much of Europe and the upper United States, after being confined to the 50th parallel and above since late 2021 as it built out the constellation.
While OneWeb now has enough satellites for global services with 634 spacecraft in LEO, including a technology demonstrator for a second-generation system, it expects to finalize the ground stations needed for worldwide coverage by the end of this year. . .Maritime connectivity prices for SpaceX’s Starlink LEO constellation, which has been busy adding customers for global coverage touting download speeds of up to 220 Mbps, start at $250 a month — and a one-time $2,500 fee for hardware that includes an antenna built in-house.

U.S.-based Kymeta and Intellian of South Korea are providing the antennas for OneWeb’s maritime services.

The maritime service announcement came a day after the operator said it is expanding a distribution partnership with Hughes Network Systems, a OneWeb investor via parent company EchoStar, to provide global inflight connectivity (IFC) once its LEO services are available for airlines next year.

Hughes, which already provides IFC services via geostationary satellites, has developed an electronically steered antenna for the partnership designed to connect a plane to satellites in LEO and geostationary orbit (GEO). . .Hughes engineered OneWeb’s gateways and is a distribution partner for the operator’s fixed satellite services in the United States and India. The company also distributes OneWeb’s connectivity solutions to the U.S. Department of Defense.

Related

SpaceX launches OneWeb Gen 2 technology demonstrator

Story continues > SPACENEWS

03.09.2023 

SpaceX launches 40 OneWeb satellites, nails landing in Florida

“Weapon$-Free School Zone$”: Be careful What You Pay For...Evolv Technology is a security firm that wants to replace traditional metal detectors with AI weapons scanners. | Tim Cushing writing in TechDirt

 

Safety Last: AI Weapons Scanners Sold To US Schools Routinely Fail To Detect Knives

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the haphazardly-thinking-of-the-children dept

Wed, Jun 7th 2023 03:43pm - Tim Cushing

We’ve done all we can we’re willing to do to make schools safer. We’ve added more cops, something that sounds like safety but just means we’ve offloaded school discipline to people trained in the art of violence. We’ve locked more doors, added more machinery, and opened up our students to all sorts of pervasive surveillance.

• And yet, we still lead the world in school shootings. Maybe that’s where we’re going wrong. Maybe we need to look towards our nearest analogue, the home of the founding fathers we told to pack up and go home back in 1776. When the dust and bullets cleared, we got the Second Amendment. They got Knifecrime Island.

The biggest threat in the US is guns. Guns are easy. Guns allow people to kill without having to generate much physical effort. The UK has clamped down on guns, but still finds itself dealing with plenty of violence, mostly of the knife variety.

Let’s let the Brits train our AI. Maybe that way we can catch weapons that aren’t guns before they’re wielded against children. 

• Whoever’s training AI to catch weapons isn’t doing the best they can to prevent weapons from being brought into schools. 
• This report, coming to us from our former landlords at the BBC, says weapons are eluding school entry checkpoints at an alarming rate.

Evolv Technology is a security firm that wants to replace traditional metal detectors with AI weapons scanners.

Instead of simply detecting metal, Evolv says its scanner “combines powerful sensor technology with proven artificial intelligence” to detect weapons.

Cool shit, non?

Non. Non, indeed.

• Evolv claims its system is “highly accurate” and utilizes intelligence capable of detecting weapons ranging from improvised explosives to guns to knives. But it apparently ain’t all that great when it comes to the last item on that list.

However, a BBC investigation last year revealed that testing had found the system could not reliably detect large knives – after Evolv’s scanner missed 42% of large knives in 24 walk-throughs.

That information was passed on to Evolv. BBC testers told Evolv to inform its clients that its AI failed to detect knives almost 50% of the time. Its clients — at that time — included stadiums across the US, as well as the Manchester Arena in the UK.

• It appears Evolv believes no news (delivered to its customers) is good news. 
• Or, at the very least, if it’s not good news, then it’s definitely good business. 

Keeping its customers in the dark has allowed Evolv to expand it market base, despite selling a faulty product that misses one form of deadly weapon more than 40% of time.

Despite this, the company has been expanding into schools, and now claims to be in hundreds of them across the US.

• Knives have rarely contributed in mass killings in the United States. We have always had better violence options.

But that fact shouldn’t be used to excuse a company’s unwillingness to inform current and potential customers of its shortcomings. 

• Sure, guns are a bigger problem in the United States, but Evolv isn’t just plying it wares in the Land of the Free and home of the Mass Shooting. 
• It’s selling apparently faulty tech to customers elsewhere in the world where gun rights are more limited and knives have become the most efficient way to engage in mass violence.

And Evolv knows it’s falling down on the job. That knowledge isn’t deterring it from pitching its products while it attempts to find a solution. In fact, it appears Evolv isn’t looking for solutions. It’s just asking its copywriters to create more absolutional sales pitches.

Following a high-profile stabbing in a New York school utilizing Evolv’s tech, Evolv began rewording its pitch pages on its website to distance itself from its previous promises of impervious defense to something much more vague and more in line with the sales pitches of cop tech, which have moved away from the term “non-lethal” following deadly deployments of their products to phrases that actively distance these tech purveyors from legal liability, like “less lethal.”

After the stabbing, the wording on Evolv’s website changed.

Up until October last year, Evolv’s homepage featured a headline that boasted of “Weapons-Free Zones”. The company then removed that wording, and changed the text to “Safe Zones”. It has now been changed again and reads “Safer Zones”.

But “safer” than what? Staying at home? Using plain old metal detectors? Belated attempts at plausible deniability?

The BBC has yet again asked Evolv to explain itself and inform its customers it’s not all that great at detecting certain weapons. And yet again, the company has refused to engage directly with the BBC and its investigative journalists. Instead of directly responding to this article, the company has directed people to an exonerative blog post written by its CEO, Peter George, in which the company claims the reason it won’t answer questions about its faulty tech is because it doesn’t want violent threats to children to exploit these details to thwart its obviously-faulty system.

But who needs to thwart anything? It’s pretty much a coin toss whether or not someone heading into a school will be caught with a knife. Why bother with the dissembling when you can just roll the dice on tech that claims it will keep schools free of weapons slightly less free of weapons may catch some weapons.

If that’s the best Evolv can do, it can be done better by cheaper tech sold by companies that actually know how to detect weapons, rather than claim they’re doing some sort of sci-fi shit with their over-priced scanners and then directing people to non-apologies every time it’s pointed out they’re failed to deliver on their promises."

Filed Under: ai, knives, scanning, weapons scanner
Companies: evolv

4 Comments

37 Chinese Warplanes Detected Near Taiwan | TaiwanPlus News

 

773 views Jun 8, 2023 #TaiwanPlus #TaiwanPlusNews #TaiwanNews

On Thursday morning, Taiwan's defense ministry said it detected 37 Chinese warplane incursions near Taiwan over a period of 6 hours

In Brief: House Tensions Erupt

 

• Andrew Solender

13 hours ago - Politics & Policy

House GOP tensions erupt as standoff hamstrings agenda

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images.

Frustrations from establishment House Republicans spilled out into the open on Wednesday after right-wing lawmakers succeeded in blocking nearly a week’s worth of House votes.

Why it matters: The latest bout of infighting has reignited concerns about GOP leadership, all but helpless to stop right-wing agitators from hijacking the legislative process.

Go deeper (2 min. read)